Father of the Year is a 2018 comedy of two buddies’ drunken debate about whose father would win in a fight is taken seriously by one of their fathers, things go bad.
David Spade has always been best in supporting roles, the one-liner and rolling eyes aside guy who hit the most laughs when he sort of passed through a scene with a remark and moved on. On the peripheral, he works. Mostly. As the headliner, well, not so much, though his voice work in The Emperor’s New Groove is still pretty darned good. With Tyler Spindel‘s new Netflix comedy Father of the Year, he gets top billing, though barely gets half the screen time and that’s probably best. That said, Father of the Year is an expected mess, yes, with or without Spade, a meaningless, brainless movie that is not just unfunny but nearly unwatchable.
Wayne (Spade) is a waste of a dad, just as the title ironically pokes at, living in a rundown trailer park, father to nice guy and aspiring success story Ben (Joey Bragg). Ben’s back in town with his best friend Larry (Matt Shively), who in a half drunken back and forth debate which father would win in a fight, Ben’s or Larry’s, a dweeby homebody named Mardy (Nat Faxon) who needs both hands to open the fridge door and is tormented by his eight-year-old son. Naturally, Wayne believes this a quest of honor and heads directly to Mardy and well, the night ends with Wayne and Ben in jail. And then … well, does it matter?
There are genuinely raw comedic films that do raunchy right, bending rules and pushing envelopes to great effect. Think of some of the early films of the Farrelly Brothers or the first American Pie. These redefined the genre and proved that laughs can come from bawdy places and still be high quality. Then there are most movies from Adam Sandler, whose Happy Madison Productions are responsible for some of the least inspiring ‘comedy’ films ever made, and now making movies for Netflix. This is where Father of the Year falls, a title made in probably a few days, lazily fumbling about with some poorly-executed gags that struggle to earn even one laugh.
What’s frustrating most about this effort is that there is, hidden in all this, the makings for something better, mostly involving Ben and the girl he has a crush on, the spunky Meredith (Bridget Mendler), who could have saved this. Unfortunately, everything around them is just boring, every joke, every setup and every gag hopelessly contrived and forced. There’s not one original joke that lands. Is there a skeleton in the makeshift pool Ben is digging for a sleazy old lady neighbor? Of course. And is it put back in the dirt and immediately forgotten? Yup. Is there a friend who is trying to join a racist biker gang who doesn’t know how to ride a motorcycle? Sure. And there’s also a scene where Wayne grows actual female breasts, because why not? It’s not that I don’t go for lowbrow comedy, if that’s such a thing, because I do, but when a film goes there for no reason and with no irony… what’s the point?
Faxon is a very funny guy who works the hardest with what he’s given, but even his on-the-spot delivery (that get the movie’s only chuckles) can’t save this train wreck. Yet the strange thing is, the movie itself doesn’t seem to really care, looking as if it’s purposefully trying to be worthless, like its trolling critics to trash it. I guess, mission accomplished and bravo. Sure, there are fans of movies like this, and no doubt, if you’re looking to spend a few hours on the couch with your brain totally turned off, this might have some appeal. It’s just too bad it’s so apathetic towards that audience, it an inert, wholly forgettable waste of time that doesn’t even try.